COVID-19 in Trinidad & Tobago (Local Updates & Discussions Only)

[redmanjp]

not a concern? what if that brazil variant come through venezuela which has no quarantine (until u ketch them at least)?


https://newsday.co.tt/2021/03/15/covid19-variants-not-a-concern-for-trinidad-and-tobago/

Covid19 variants not a concern for Trinidad and Tobago
RHIANNA MC KENZIE 2 HRS AGO
Image courtesy CDC

Professor of molecular genetics and virology Christine Carrington has said while there are several variants of covid19 under investigation, none of them are cause for concern in Trinidad and Tobago now.

Carrington was speaking at the Ministry of Health’s virtual press conference on Monday.

She said in the year since covid19 became a global pandemic, one of the concerns that has arisen is the number of variants of the virus that have surfaced. She said the B117 variant, otherwise known as the United Kingdom (UK) variant, has been detected so far in seven Caribbean countries and caused rapid community spread.

On January 21, the Ministry of Health confirmed the first covid19 variant of concern (UK) case. Carrington said this case, however, was in a controlled, quarantined environment and did not lead to community spread as in the other regional cases.

“The (covid19) protocols are doing (their) job,” she said.

Other variants of concern include the B1351 (South African) and the P1 (Brazilian).

She said while there have not been any reported cases of the South African variant to date in the Caribbean, the ministry did detect the Brazilian variant. The sample was taken from a passenger on a boat, who was not allowed to disembark owing to border and quarantine restrictions.

She said there are several other variants under investigation or of interest worldwide because they have some of the mutations found in the variants of concern.

[ruffneck_12]

Diabetes/obesity kill more people than covid


but sure, make sure you put back on your mask after sipping on your Coca Cola with your WHOLE roti for lunch.

7783 cases
140 deaths
(140 / 7783) * 100 = 1.8% chance of dying.


98.2% chance of survival.

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

Diabetes/obesity kill more people than covid


but sure, make sure you put back on your mask after sipping on your Coca Cola with your WHOLE roti for lunch.

7783 cases
140 deaths
(140 / 7783) * 100 = 1.8% chance of dying.


98.2% chance of survival.

Diabetes/obesity isn't contagious like Covid-19 is.
We have 140 / 7783 because we have been under lockdown measures with closed borders.
Both numbers could have been much much higher if we didn't have those measures in place.

[Dohplaydat]

Diabetes/obesity kill more people than covid


but sure, make sure you put back on your mask after sipping on your Coca Cola with your WHOLE roti for lunch.

7783 cases
140 deaths
(140 / 7783) * 100 = 1.8% chance of dying.


98.2% chance of survival.

Diabetes/obesity isn't contagious like Covid-19 is.
We have 140 / 7783 because we have been under lockdown measures with closed borders.
Both numbers could have been much much higher if we didn't have those measures in place.

I don't think they understand that.

However, the one thing I want to add, while it definitely could and would have been worse, I don't beleive it would ever have gotten as bad as it got in countries with colder climates.

The European and US summer would have been our worse case scnario which would have been roughly 200-300 cases a day, and probably triple our current death.s

[paid_influencer]

we also got very lucky last February. The week after Carnival was when Italy's hospitals got overwhelmed and people were dying on the streets.

[redmanjp]

basically he saying other countries who started vaccination are using non WHO-approved vaccines. both the vaccine AND the plant making them has to be WHO approved.

[redmanjp]

cases rising again

RISHARD KHAN
rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

 https://guardian.co.tt/news/covid19-cases-rising-warns-cmo-6.2.1301917.46be9d7c0b

There has been a small rise in COVID-19 cases in the country and this has prompted the Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr Roshan Parasram, to renew calls for citizens to remain vigilant despite the low numbers, as he blames complacency for the increased numbers.

Speaking during a Ministry of Health virtual press conference on Monday, Dr Parasram noted the increase came within the last week.

"First, we had seven (cases); then we had a spike of 10; and now we have 14 new cases over the last 24 hours," he said.

"Prior to that, we had been hovering anywhere between a seven-day rolling average of 3 or four for upwards of over a month or more," the CMO pointed out.

The cases, he indicated, all came from County Caroni, where there were about three major clusters.

"Those clusters would have possibly been involving two families, places of work.  We really saw that from one individual being infected—that one person was able to spread it to quite a large number of people in a short space of time," he said.

This, he said, brings the seven-day rolling average up to seven.  This is why he reminded citizens to remain vigilant at all times.

"We are listed in Trinidad and Tobago as community spread.  We have not changed that designation for quite a while now.  When we look at the classification from WHO (the World Health Organisation) we are at a place where we can be classified as low community spread.  This incident or incidents we are seeing in Caroni is reason for us to maintain our vigilance throughout the country."

"COVID-19 is here.  It is in the country.  It hasn't gone away and there has been a little complacency over the last couple of weeks because of the low numbers, in my view," Dr Parasram said.

This cluster, he said, had the potential to cascade into a more significant outbreak, "in a very short space of time".

Meanwhile, Minister of Health, Terrence Deyalsingh, dug his heels in to defend his policy that the country would only procure and administer vaccines approved by the WHO.

[redmanjp]

there should be an international ban on wildlife trade - the consequences are just too much

WHO Points To Wildlife Farms In Southern China As Likely Source Of Pandemic
March 15, 20215:41 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF

listen: https://ondemand.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/atc/2021/03/20210315_atc_the_animal_origin_theory_for_covid-19.mp3

Bamboo rats are among the wild animals farmed for food in China and other parts of Asia. A member of the World Health Organization team investigating the coronavirus pandemic says its report will conclude that such animal farms are likely the place where the pandemic began. Above, a live rat is on sale at a food market in Myanmar.
Jerry Redfern/LightRocket via Getty Images

A member of the World Health Organization investigative team says wildlife farms in southern China are the most likely source of the COVID-19 pandemic.

China shut down those wildlife farms in February 2020, says Peter Daszak, a disease ecologist with EcoHealth Alliance and a member of the WHO delegation that traveled to China this year. During that trip, Daszak says, the WHO team found new evidence that these wildlife farms were supplying vendors at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan with animals.

Daszak told NPR that the government response was a strong signal that the Chinese government thought those farms were the most probable pathway for a coronavirus in bats in southern China to reach humans in Wuhan.

Those wildlife farms, including ones in the Yunnan region, are part of a unique project that the Chinese government has been promoting for 20 years now.

"They take exotic animals, like civets, porcupines, pangolins, raccoon dogs and bamboo rats, and they breed them in captivity," says Daszak.

The agency is expected to release the team's investigative findings in the next two weeks. In the meantime, Daszak gave NPR a highlight of what the team figured out.

"China promoted the farming of wildlife as a way to alleviate rural populations out of poverty," Daszak says. The farms helped the government meet ambitious goals of closing the rural-urban divide, as NPR reported last year.

"It was very successful," Daszak says. "In 2016, they had 14 million people employed in wildlife farms, and it was a $70 billion industry."

Then on Feb. 24, 2020, right when the outbreak in Wuhan was winding down, the Chinese government made a complete about-face about the farms.

"What China did then was very important," Daszak says. "They put out a declaration saying that they were going to stop the farming of wildlife for food."

The government shut down the farms. "They sent out instructions to the farmers about how to safely dispose of the animals — to bury, kill or burn them — in a way that didn't spread disease."

Why would the government do this? Because, Daszak thinks, these farms could be the spot of spillover, where the coronavirus jumped from a bat into another animal and then into people. "I do think that SARS-CoV-2 first got into people in South China. It's looking that way."

First off, many farms are located in or around a southern province, Yunnan, where virologists found a bat virus that's genetically 96% similar to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19. Second, the farms breed animals that are known to carry coronaviruses, such as civet cats and pangolins.

Finally, during the WHO's mission to China, Daszak said the team found new evidence that these farms were supplying vendors at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, where an early outbreak of COVID-19 occurred.

The market was shut down overnight on Dec. 31, 2019, after it was linked to cases of what was then described as a mysterious pneumonia-like illness.

"There was massive transmission going on at that market for sure," says Linfa Wang, a virologist who studies bat viruses at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore. He's also part of the WHO investigative team. Wang says that after the outbreak at the Huanan market, Chinese scientists went there and looked for the virus.

"In the live animal section, they had many positive samples," Wang says. "They even have two samples from which they could isolate live virus."

And so Daszak and others on the WHO team believe that the wildlife farms provided a perfect conduit between a coronavirus-infected bat in Yunnan (or neighboring Myanmar) and a Wuhan animal market.

"China closes that pathway down for a reason," Daszak says. "The reason was, back in February 2020, they believed this was the most likely pathway [for the coronavirus to spread to Wuhan]. And when the WHO report comes out ... we believe it's the most likely pathway too."

The next step, says Daszak, is to figure out specifically which animal carried the virus and at which of the many wildlife farms.

[redmanjp]

deyalsingh hopes to do 1000 vaccinations per day. even if u just do 1,000,000 ppl. thats 3 years! and that doesn't even take the 2nd shot into account so we looking at a slow 6 years at that rate unless there is a massive ramp up involving the private sector. in the US they doing like > 2 million per day

[sMASH]

basically he saying other countries who started vaccination are using non WHO-approved vaccines. both the vaccine AND the plant making them has to be WHO approved.

a lil fact check:
the ones donated to us out of pity were approved, and part of the some that made it to caribbean countries, in india's vaccine diplomacy drive. even the govt went out of its way to attest that they were approved.
deliesingh is not being completely honest.

[Dohplaydat]

deyalsingh hopes to do 1000 vaccinations per day. even if u just do 1,000,000 ppl. thats 3 years! and that doesn't even take the 2nd shot into account so we looking at a slow 6 years at that rate unless there is a massive ramp up involving the private sector. in the US they doing like > 2 million per day

Lord this better be a joke.

Watch and see though, their lack of a vaccination plan/acquisition is probably so that their friends in the local pharmaceutical supply industry can bring them down and charge tonnes of markup.

These vaccines cost around $20US for two doses, but let's say $30US.

Locally they may charged doctors and private facilities at least a 50% markup.

So profit per vaccine is $100 TT minimum.

If 500k people pay for it privately, that's $50M profit at the very least for those suppliers.

[Habit7]

a lil fact check:
the ones donated to us out of pity were approved, and part of the some that made it to caribbean countries, in india's vaccine diplomacy drive. even the govt went out of its way to attest that they were approved.
deliesingh is not being completely honest.

Barbados gets AZ vaccine 9 Feb
T&T receives donation from Barbados 10 Feb
Barbados starts vaccination 11 Feb
WHO approves AZ vaccine 15 Feb
TT starts vaccination 16 Feb

TT only started vaccination after WHO approval of AZ.

[sMASH]

taking 2000 doses of a double shot vaccine for a population of 1.4m is hardly starting vaccination. since there will be months for the second round of vaccinations to arrive, it is effectively no.

[Dohplaydat]

a lil fact check:
the ones donated to us out of pity were approved, and part of the some that made it to caribbean countries, in india's vaccine diplomacy drive. even the govt went out of its way to attest that they were approved.
deliesingh is not being completely honest.

Barbados gets AZ vaccine 9 Feb
T&T receives donation from Barbados 10 Feb
Barbados starts vaccination 11 Feb
WHO approves AZ vaccine 15 Feb
TT starts vaccination 16 Feb

TT only started vaccination after WHO approval of AZ.

That's more of a coincidence than intentional, pretty sure we would have started on the 16th regardless of WHO approval

[Dohplaydat]

17 cases today, the most since February 4th

[zoom rader]

a lil fact check:
the ones donated to us out of pity were approved, and part of the some that made it to caribbean countries, in india's vaccine diplomacy drive. even the govt went out of its way to attest that they were approved.
deliesingh is not being completely honest.

Barbados gets AZ vaccine 9 Feb
T&T receives donation from Barbados 10 Feb
Barbados starts vaccination 11 Feb
WHO approves AZ vaccine 15 Feb
TT starts vaccination 16 Feb

TT only started vaccination after WHO approval of AZ.

What a banana republic Trinidad is..

Rowlair and Terry are two dumbwitts. Again we are the laughing stock of Carri-con

[redmanjp]

17 cases today, the most since February 4th

county caroni causing that

[Habit7]

Rowlair and Terry are two dumbwitts. Again we are the laughing stock of Carri-con

Sure they are

[De Dragon]

Rowlair and Terry are two dumbwitts. Again we are the laughing stock of Carri-con

Sure they are

FB_IMG_1616026744455.jpg

Throw up something about testing rates, just to be fair and not LFD RFD PNM nah.......

[Dohplaydat]

Rowlair and Terry are two dumbwitts. Again we are the laughing stock of Carri-con

Sure they are

FB_IMG_1616026744455.jpg

LOL active case are probably the worst metric to measure covid performance given the utter lack of testing that is being done in Trinidad, a whole year past and we still struggling to do that.

You all really expected this lazy bunch of incompetents to get the vaccination plan done right?



This graph can be used to assess the 'true' covid reality in country as testing rates and standards greatly affect how covid-19 is perceived to be in that country.

Look at where T&T lies, around 10% positive rate, definitely in the bottom 1/3 of the world, even with our low cases at the moment.

That is NOT good, at our worst in Sep-Oct, we were literally one of the worst performers in the entire world.

So stop spinning, we are failing and floundering our way around covid.

1. Unnecessary policies like closing the border to citizens for more than a year (I know many who have been trying and haven't been successful even up till now).
2. Rivers closed, lol....wtf
3. Schools closed for more than a year and no urgency with getting vaccines
4. National festival of Carnival in danger of being canceled another year

You'd think with our great covid success we'd open up and relax (like NZ or SE Asia), but alas the government loves being a dictictorial massa.

[sMASH]

[De Dragon]

Cacahole P*rnHabit7 and he selective fact presentation again, I deliberately asked him to state how our testing compared to other countries and you'll notice the dummy run and hide. Mind you, this was the same Dotishee who pretended to not know about GDP and other comparative data to attempt to back peddle out of a comparison of where our oil wealth went in relation to Norway, Qatar etc. Not unlike the next equally asininely Plastic Bag who claimed that our entire load was blown between 2010-2015 when PP was in power

[sMASH]

he did went to get the testing stats, stop lying on de man.. he was goin lefff foot, rittte foot, leffff foot, rittte foot.

without even knowing stats, just a by the bye encounter with a covid stats, u know that they not testing sufficiently.

i knew our test rate was low, but since the death rate is low, i say it wasnt worth verifying.
i really didnt think it was this low. this is beyond appalling, its propaganda level stats

any worse stats, and u would find they bun down the covid statistic office too, like wasa accounting.

[paid_influencer]

the extremely dotish thing is why people have to apply for an exemption to leave the country.

the other day a relative call to ask if I have any connection in the Ministry. He have citizenship away and already sell out everything here and just want to get off the damn island. But the government ent give him permission to leave yet.

[sMASH]

that makes no sense at all. all they need to do is to ensure u understand that when u leave, u cant come back unless is tru quarantine.

[De Dragon]

that makes no sense at all. all they need to do is to ensure u understand that when u leave, u cant come back unless is tru quarantine.

These basic concepts are beyond any LFD RFD PNM brain.
Worse yet, Goebbels seems to get a sadistic pleasure from playing God with exemptions, except for JUHNette and she crew of course, when he husband, who he didn't talk to about it call a shot

[Habit7]

Right now in Jamaica, there are ppl laughing at T&T because they have higher testing that us.

All while tourist arrivals down by 65-80%, they have half the hospital beds per capita to us, healthcare is not free, they have 15,000 active cases and they have less than 100K vaccine doses, enough to vaccine 50K of their 2.7M population.

But at least they test more because as we all know, testing is a more important metric than active cases.

[De Dragon]

Right now in Jamaica, there are ppl laughing at T&T because they have higher testing that us.

All while tourist arrivals down by 65-80%, they have half the hospital beds per capita to us, healthcare is not free, they have 15,000 active cases and they have less than 100K vaccine doses, enough to vaccine 50K of their 2.7M population.

But at least they test more because as we all know, testing is a more important metric than active cases.

You facking serious? How TF do you determine active cases again?
You really in your own little LFD RFD PNM universe yes!

[Habit7]

You facking serious? How TF do you determine active cases again?

Are you Prior from AZP news?

[De Dragon]

You facking serious? How TF do you determine active cases again?

Are you Prior from AZP news?

Lower testing rates obviously results in lower positive case numbers
C'mon nah man, it's like you're not even trying anymore